How Greer development project aims to improve public safety needs
To accommodate its rapid growth, the City of Greer identified a need to bolster its public safety presence.
As part of its $100 million "ForGreer" development project, officials announced a new fire station and a public safety training facility to aid in first responder response to the city’s growing population.
According to the most recent data from U.S. Census Bureau, Greer’s population grew 19% from 2020 to 2022. The Greer Fire Department also received a yearly increase in emergency calls since 2020. In 2020, Greer FD received 3,722 calls, but by 2023 they received 5,001 calls, according to data provided by Greer Fire Chief Dorian Flowers.
The new fire station slated for the Groce Meadows Rd. area could reduce the response time to emergencies by seven minutes, Flowers said. The closest fire station operated by the Greer Fire Department is 4.6 miles away from the Groce Meadows Rd. area.
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"That's critical in everything that we do," Flowers said. "Being able to respond in a reasonable amount of time makes the difference day-in and day-out."
This station will be the fifth fire station being operated by the Greer Fire Department.
Greer PD in need of their own place to train
For the past few years, the Greer Police Department used training spaces utilized by the Greenville County Sheriff's Office and Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport security to train their officers. The need to borrow other training sites created scheduling conflicts for Greer police officers, Greer Police Chief Matthew Hamby said.
The new public safety training facility will be located on Hood Rd. and will include amenities like an indoor firing range, classrooms, office spaces and a fire training tower. The facility is estimated to be 18,000 square feet.
Hamby said that sharing training facilities created scheduling conflicts which led to officers not being able to find time to adequately train to meet certain qualifications required for firearm use. With a facility to call their own, officers will have a place to train whenever they want.
The department was forced to close its old firing range, located outdoors on Highway 101, as more housing developments popped up around the area, Hamby said. With an indoor facility, officers won’t have to worry about posing a risk to the public if stray bullets come from the firing range into nearby neighborhoods.
"We hope that this will solve a problem for many years to come as we see Greer continues to grow with new developments all over the place," Hamby said.
The training facility will replace what currently is the Greer Fire Department’s Station 42. The operations at Station 42 will be relocated to a station currently being constructed at the intersection of Suber Rd. and Chick Springs Rd.
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According to city officials, the new training facility will cost $17 million, and the fire station will cost $11 million.
Construction is set to begin on the training facility in late 2024, while a construction timeline for the fire station is currently unknown.
Greer’s city administrator Andy Merriman said that the two facilities are a huge improvement for the city in how they go about the city’s public safety.
"The goal is to ensure that we are putting our fire, emergency response facilities, equipment and personnel in a position to respond as quickly as possible," Merriman said.
Terry Benjamin II covers public safety and breaking news for The Greenville News and can be reached at tbenjamin@gannett.com or on X @Terrybenji2.
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Greer development project to address public safety needs, growth
